Inside the home of evil Yorkshire terrorist who plotted mass destruction

When Counter Terrorism Police raided Salah's home at the Fatima Community Centre in Brunswick Road, Sheffield they were to recover items suggesting an attack was in the making.

The Head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, Detective Chief Superintendent Martin Snowden, said: "A number of items were recovered following the raid of Salah's home.

"We found some black powder and homemade fusers and cotton wool - all of which are exhibits in the testing of explosives.

"We also recovered media devices including a phone and laptop which we used to build a greater picture of his mindset.

"On these there was Daesh material. We also found communications between Salah and other people where he would talk about the testing of explosives and carrying out a martyr-style operation.

"He told people he was at the critical stage of his testing and that he saw himself as a terrorist who would be judged by God.

Salah became known to Counter Terrorism Police through an earlier investigation where he was found in possession of a bomb making video.The video was the same one used by Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi.

Mr Snowden said: "This led us to look at him and build an understanding of his activities, his associates, who he was meeting or speaking with in the UK and abroad.

"The investigation soon gathered pace. It was a complex investigation where we built an understanding around Salah's mindset and identified he held extremist views. He was also in possession of extremist ideology and other propaganda material."

Much of this material was extremely disturbing, involving horrific scenes of torture and murder.

Mr Snowden said: "We also built up an understanding that he was at some stage of factoring and testing explosives and looking to build improvised explosive devices from those tests.

"As a result a decision was made that we needed to disrupt his activity and he was arrested on December 19, 2017."

Despite never establishing the final target of an attack, Mr Snowden said his team were satisfied Salah posed a significant risk to the UK.

He said: "The attack could have been here in the UK or it could have been abroad.

"We were satisfied that this man posed a very real risk to the safety of the public and we needed to stop Salah from taking his plans any further."

In the week before he was arrested by police, he had messaged a Facebook contact to say: "My only attempt is to find a way to carry out martyrdom operation with cars without driver, everything is perfect only the programme is left ..."

Earlier this month, jurors found Salah guilty of preparing to commit acts of terrorism.

He was sentenced to 15 years in prison with an extended three-year period on licence.

Mr Snowden said: "He was a serious threat to national security.

“While our investigation did not establish the target of a potential attack, Salah posed a very real risk to the safety of our communities.

"We’re grateful we were able to disrupt his plans before he’d identified an opportunity to see them through.”